Report 1446
Special Report #1446 Skillset: Knighthood Skill: Skewer Org: Serenguard Status: Completed Feb 2016 Furies' Decision: Solution 2. Problem: Skewer currently requires critical gut and chest wounds, as well as the target to be impaled. This is one of the more viable warrior kills, however it suffers from one small issue. Writhing impales takes less time than the average warrior balance time, which makes it difficult to follow up with a skewer. The only thing that delays writhing impales is knocking the target off-balance before hand. This is not viable to force as a Cavalier, though if fighting a class that uses balance, you may theoretically hit impale at a lucky time after their attack that might delay the initiation of a writhe. Either way, either warrior balance times or impale writhe times would need to be changed to make this kill method more reliable overall, which is a sticky issue since impales arguably don't need that sort of buff and warrior strike times really shouldn't be made faster. Some solutions are proposed below. 0 R: 0 Solution #1: This solution is conditional on report 1447 solution 1 being accepted, raising the ice affliction cure delay at critical wounds. Add CrushedChest to Cavalier at heavy or critical wounds. Replace impaledgut with this as the new affliction requirement for skewer. This solution avoids messing with writhe times or warrior balance times. 0 R: 0 Solution #2: Raise impaledgut writhing time with gut wounds, to a limit of 4 seconds at critical wounds. 0 R: 0 Solution #3: Change skewer to a 2-step command and reduce its power to 2p each time. If the target has critical chest and gut but NOT impaled, the first SKEWER will perform the equivalent of STRIKE TARGET GUT IMPALE, as well as apply a 2-3 second balance loss. If the target is impaled, the second SKEWER will perform the kill as it currently does, assuming the target still has critical chest and gut wounds. The first instance of SKEWER (the impale) should be parryable, the second instance (the kill) should not. Player Comments: ---on 2/15 @ 19:18 writes: Solution 2 is simpler IMO. ---on 2/15 @ 20:54 writes: I was able to get a Skewer kill by leveraging Steed Pincharge & Skewer. That's the only way I can see of getting it work though. I don't particularly like solution 1 though. It's not thematically appropriate, and it's still just another aff you need to land & stick. Why not make skewer a 2-step process? You can SKEWER TARGET if both chest & gut are critical. If the target is not impaled, the first usage of it will apply the impaled affliction and a 2-3s stun (assuming not parried). If the target IS impaled, it will do the instakill (second stage does not check parry, as per current usage). This way you do not buff gut impale for everyone and you make it practical to use. The AB doesn't say anything about power costs right now, but when I used it in combat it cost me 4p, so split it up (2p on the initial activation, and 2p on the finisher). Someone can try to save your target by gusting you out of the room and/or webbing you so that your target can writhe out before you are able to pull off the final blow. It is slightly more complicated, but I think easier to work with instead of replacing the aff entirely OR buffing all gut impales. ---on 2/15 @ 21:24 writes: Impale gut from Cavs is currently (?) the only gut impale left in the game. Raising the writhe time to 4s is way simpler than any other solution presented here ---on 2/15 @ 21:37 writes: But also means that just using standard gut impale (normal usage, not skewer usage) will keep a target locked down longer. If it is the only gut impale then I guess there is no balance with other specs / classes that needs to be considered, then it has potential, but I'm a little skeptical about keeping people impaled for longer by default. ---on 2/16 @ 00:42 writes: Trying to compare with other Knighthood kills, I think Impale could be changed with a prone/bleeding/another aff requirement. Lengthening Impale would definitely seal the kill, but would also open target to escape or torture. ---on 2/16 @ 00:56 writes: Xenthos' solution sounds very good to me too. I'll include it as solution 3. ---on 2/18 @ 07:10 writes: Solution 2 or 3 both sound fine to me. It's true that sol. 2 would be a general buff to cavalier hindering but I think you should be rewarded for reaching critical. I don't think the writhe time should necessarily scale linearly on the wound amount though. Light wounding should be the same writhe time as now, with a jump at heavy and a jump to 4s at critical. Although that being said I don't actually know what the current writhe time is so maybe going linearly would be equivalent.